IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy (ACERP) > ACERP2020

ACERP2020

ACERP2020

March 26-29, 2020 | Toshi Center Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

Welcome to the tenth concurrent Asian Conferences on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy (ACERP) and Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences (ACP), held under the umbrella name of “Think Tokyo 2020”. This naming reflects our location in the capital city of Tokyo, and also underlines IAFOR’s mission to promote interdisciplinary study informed by reflections on how we reason, believe, and behave, as individuals, communities and societies, and on the act, art, science, and imperative of thinking. Since 2011, this extraordinary event has encouraged academics and practitioners working in and across different fields, and from different cultural, religious and national backgrounds, to come together and explore the latest ideas, network, and seek for new research paths and synergies.

Held in partnership with the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, this international conference encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum stimulating respectful dialogue. This event will afford an exceptional opportunity for renewing old acquaintances, making new contacts, networking, and facilitating partnerships across national and disciplinary borders.

Since its founding in 2009, IAFOR has brought people and ideas together in a variety of events and platforms to promote and celebrate interdisciplinary study, and underline its importance. Over the past year we have engaged in many cross-sectoral projects, including those with universities (the University of Barcelona, Hofstra University, UCL, University of Belgrade and Moscow State University), a think tank (the East-West Center), as well as collaborative projects with the United Nations in New York, and here, with the Government of Japan through the Prime Minister’s office.

With the IAFOR Research Centre, we have engaged in a number of interdisciplinary initiatives we believe will have an important impact on domestic and international public policy conversations. It is through conferences like these that we expand our network and partners, and we have no doubt that ACP/ACERP2020 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice, for the meeting of people and ideas.

Due to uncertainties surrounding the global coronavirus pandemic, ACERP2020 was held online.

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Plenary Presentations

Keynote Presentation
Dialectical Behavior Therapy – Its Relevance for Japan in Social Transition
Mie Takaki, DBT Tokyo, Japan

Featured Presentation
Religious Complicity and LGBTQ Rights
Frank S. Ravitch, Michigan State University College of Law, USA

Featured Presentation
Helping a Stranger in Japan: Who Helps and Why?
Yu Niiya, Hosei University, Japan

Keynote Workshop
Aging Data: NACDA & an Open-source Repository
James W. McNally, University of Michigan & NACDA Program on Aging, USA

Keynote Presentation
Embracing Difference: Religious Diversity in the UK
Stephen E. Gregg, University of Wolverhampton, UK

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Speakers

  • Stephen E. Gregg
    Stephen E. Gregg
    University of Wolverhampton, UK
  • Yu Niiya
    Yu Niiya
    Hosei University, Japan
  • Frank S. Ravitch
    Frank S. Ravitch
    Michigan State University College of Law, United States
  • Mie Takaki
    Mie Takaki
    DBT Tokyo, Japan

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Programme

  • Embracing Difference: Religious Diversity in the UK
    Embracing Difference: Religious Diversity in the UK
    Keynote Presentation: Stephen Gregg
  • Religious Complicity and LGBTQ Rights
    Religious Complicity and LGBTQ Rights
    Keynote Presentation: Frank S. Ravitch
  • Helping a stranger in Japan: Who helps and why?
    Helping a stranger in Japan: Who helps and why?
    Featured Presentation: Yu Niiya
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy – Its Relevance for Japan in Social Transition
    Dialectical Behavior Therapy – Its Relevance for Japan in Social Transition
    Featured Presentation: Mie Takaki

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Organising Committee

  • Mimi Bong
    Mimi Bong
    Korea University, South Korea
  • George D. Chryssides
    George D. Chryssides
    The University of Birmingham, UK
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Frank S. Ravitch
    Frank S. Ravitch
    Michigan State University College of Law, United States
  • Monty P. Satiadarma
    Monty P. Satiadarma
    Tarumanagara University, Indonesia
  • Dexter Da Silva
    Dexter Da Silva
    Keisen University, Japan
  • Brian Victoria
    Brian Victoria
    Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK

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ACERP2020 Review Committee

  • Professor Craig Mark, Kyoritsu Women's University, Japan
  • Dr Daniel Dei, North-West University, South Africa
  • Professor Hrishikesh Misra, Dev Sanskriti Vishwa Vidyalaya, India
  • Dr Ian Raymond Bustamante-Pacquing, University of Santo Tomas, Philippines
  • Dr Johan Eddebo, Uppsala University, Sweden
  • Dr Lampros Papagiannis, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Greece
  • Dr Maisarah Hasbullah, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Malaysia
  • Dr Matthew Malcolm, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia
  • Dr Noor Munirah Isa, University of Malaya, Malaysia
  • Dr Pascal Soepper, Independent Scholar/Researcher, Japan

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IAFOR Grant & Scholarship Recipients

Our warmest congratulations go to Missaye Mengstie, Lyka Marie Tiongco, Hafsah Macaraya, Maxi Heitmayer, Mira Reyes, who have been selected by the conference Organising Committee to receive grants and scholarships to present their research at ACERP/ACP2020.

Missaye Mengstie

Stuart D. B. Picken Grant and Scholarship Recipient

Perceived Organizational Justice, Job Attitudes and Turnover Intention Among Hospital Healthcare Workers
Missaye Mengstie, University of Gondar, Ethiopia

Dr Missaye Mulatie Mengstie received his PhD in Social Psychology on June 7, 2016 from Addis Ababa University. He has been engaged in teaching, research and community services in different higher institutions of Ethiopia for the last 10 years. Dr Mengstie was head of the Department of Psychology at University of Gondar for two terms. Currently he is a Research and Publication Officer at University of Gondar, Ethiopia. Beside these, he is a member of the Institutional Review Board of University of Gondar. Dr Mengstie received various awards and recognitions from national and international organizations. He won The Best Researcher of the Year (2018/19) award from University of Gondar seed grant from Education Quality & Learning for All (EQUAL), Sustainable Development Solutions Network/Global Ties for Children – New York University, United States of America, 2018, and he was a Visiting researcher at National and Kopadstrial University of Athens, Greece, 2015.

Lyka Marie Tiongco

IAFOR Scholarship Recipient

Predictive Role of Self-efficacy and Self-compassion in Life Satisfaction of Young Adults
Lyka Marie Tiongco, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Philippines

Ms Lyka Tiongco is currently a Research Assistant of Center for Education Access and Development at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. Born in the Philippines, Ms Tiongco was educated at the University of the Philippines in Baguio City and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences with a major in economics and minor in psychology. Today, she is in her second year towards a masters degree in clinical psychology at De La Salle University in Manila. Ms Tiongco’s research has embraced mental health and educational psychology with a special emphasis on deaf learners. She is also a member of the Philippine Mental Health Association, and the founder of LAYA, a nonprofit advocacy campaign focusing on mental health and violence against women and children.

Hafsah Macaraya

IAFOR Scholarship Recipient

Unveiling the Lived Experiences of the Faces Behind the Niqab: Allegiance to Faith
Hafsah Macaraya, Arellano University, Philippines

Ms Hafsah Macaraya is a full-time doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at Far Eastern University, Manila City, Philippines. She used to be a college instructor teaching various psychology courses.

Maxi Heitmayer

IAFOR Scholarship Recipient

The Ethics of Qualitative Video Research: A Comprehensive Overview of the State of the Art and Prospective Solutions
Maxi Heitmayer, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom
Marina Everri, University College Dublin, Ireland
Paulius Yamin-Slotkus, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom
Saadi Lahlou, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom

Maxi Heitmayer is currently a PhD Candidate in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He holds an LSE PhD Studentship, an MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology from the LSE, an MA in International Relations from Jacobs University, and a BA in Political Science from the University of Bremen, and he teaches on the MSc Psychology of Economic Life and the BSc in Management at the LSE. Maxi’s research tries to better our understanding of how people use their smart devices and social media in everyday life. To do so, he uses digital video ethnography techniques (SEBE) to study how users interact with their devices in naturally occurring contexts, what routines and behavioural patterns they have developed, and how this influences their decision-making processes, particularly regarding the use of time and the direction of attention.

Mira Reyes

IAFOR Scholarship Recipient

When Pompey’s Elephants Trumpeted for Mercy: Animal Suffering and Levinas’ Ethics of the Face
Mira Reyes, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic

Mira Reyes is presently a doctoral scholar and research assistant at the University of Pardubice Centre for Ethics, Czech Republic. In the past, she was also a research scholar of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She was also elected to the board of the Philosophical Association of the Philippines (PAP) and the Philosophy Circle of the Philippines (PCP). She is a graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University and taught philosophy in Miriam College for many years where she also became chair of philosophy. She recently received a summer grant from the Animals and Society Institute for a summer course in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign which helped her in writing her dissertation entitled “Otherwise than Anthropocentrism: Levinas Face-to-Face with the Animal. She has spoken in many international conferences on the subject of animal ethics.

IAFOR's grants and scholarships programme provides financial support to PhD students and early career academics, with the aim of helping them pursue research excellence and achieve their academic goals through interdisciplinary study and interaction. Awards are based on the appropriateness of the educational opportunity in relation to the applicant's field of study, financial need, and contributions to their community and to IAFOR's mission of interdisciplinarity. Scholarships are awarded based on availability of funds from IAFOR and vary with each conference.

Click here to learn out more about IAFOR grants and scholarships.

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IAFOR Research Centre (IRC) – “Innovation and Value Initiative”

The IAFOR Research Centre (IRC) is housed within Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), and in June 2018 the IRC began an ambitious new “Innovation and Value Initiative”. Officially launched at the United Nations in a special UN-IAFOR Collaborative Session, the initiative seeks to bring together the best in interdisciplinary research around the concept of value, on how value can be recognised, and measured, and how this can help us address issues and solve problems, from the local to the global.

Learn more about the Innovation and Value Initiative

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Stephen E. Gregg
University of Wolverhampton, UK

Biography

Dr Stephen E. Gregg is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, and the Hon. Secretary of the British Association for the Study of Religions. His research interests are focused on Religious Identity, Contemporary Religion, Minority Religions, and Religion and Comedy/Performance. His recent books include Swami Vivekananda and Non-Hindu Traditions (Routledge, 2019), The Insider/Outsider Debate: New Approaches in the Study of Religion (Equinox, 2019), The Bloomsbury Handbook to Studying Christians (Bloomsbury, 2019), Engaging with Living Religion (Routledge, 2015) and Jesus Beyond Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Stephen received his BA and PhD from the University of Wales, where he was subsequently appointed Lecturer in Religious Studies. He was then appointed as Fellow in the Study of Religion at Liverpool Hope University and is now Senior Lecturer at Wolverhampton, the multicultural heart of the UK. He has delivered invited papers at universities in India, Turkey, Australia, the USA, and across the UK and Europe. In 2013 Stephen was the lead coordinator for the European Association for the Study of Religions and the International Association for the History of Religions Conference in Liverpool, UK.

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Embracing Difference: Religious Diversity in the UK
Yu Niiya
Hosei University, Japan

Biography

Dr Yu Niiya is a Professor in the Department of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies (GIS) at Hosei University, Tokyo. She received her MA from the University of Tokyo and her PhD from the University of Michigan in social psychology. Dr Niiya’s research interests lie in the exploration of whether a compassionate mindset can encourage people to overcome their hesitation to take risks. For example, she is currently investigating how having compassionate goals (i.e., the goals to support others) and self-image goals (i.e., the goals to project a desirable image of the self, such as appearing helpful) predict the extent to which people express dissent toward the group they belong to or the extent to which they will offer help to a stranger. Furthermore, she has worked on what enables people to learn from failure, the positive relational consequences of adult’s amae, and many cross-cultural studies on various topics. She has been a PI (principal investigator) and collaborator on many Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) projects for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She is also an associate editor for the Asian Journal of Social Psychology and the Japanese Journal of Social Psychology.

Featured Presentation (2020) | Helping a stranger in Japan: Who helps and why?
Frank S. Ravitch
Michigan State University College of Law, United States

Biography

Frank S. Ravitch is Professor of Law and Walter H. Stowers Chair in Law in Religion at the Michigan State University College of Law. He also directs the MSU College of Law's Kyoto Japan Program. He is the author of Freedom’s Edge: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and the Future of America (Cambridge University Press, 2016) (Nominated for a Prose Award); Marketing Creation: The Law and Intelligent Design (Cambridge University Press 2012), Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses (NYU Press 2007); Law and Religion: Cases, Materials, and Readings (West 2004)(2nd Ed. 2008) (3rd Ed. 2015 with Larry Cata Backer), School Prayer and Discrimination: The Civil Rights of Religious Minorities and Dissenters (Northeastern University Press, 1999 & paperback edition 2001). He is co-author, with the late Boris Bittker and with Scott Idleman, of the first comprehensive treatise on Law and Religion in more than one hundred years, Religion and the State in American Law (Cambridge University Press 2015) (this project was supported by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment). He is co-author of Employment Discrimination Law (Prentice Hall, 2005) (with Pamela Sumners and Janis McDonald).

Professor Ravitch's articles, which have appeared in a number of highly regarded journals, have primarily focused on law and religion in the US and Japan. He has also written about civil rights law and disability discrimination. He has authored a number of amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court and has given numerous academic presentations nationally and internationally. In 2001, he was named a Fulbright scholar and served on the law faculty at Doshisha University in Japan. He has also made dozens of public presentations explaining the law to school groups, community groups, and service clubs, and has served as an expert commentator for print and broadcast media.

Professor Ravitch's current projects include a book on the Japanese Legal System (co-authored with Colin Jones), a chapter on law and religious tradition, and a project focusing on Law, Religion, and Authoritarianism. He speaks English and has basic conversational skills in Japanese and Hebrew.

Keynote Presentation (2023) | Ships in the Night: Expansion of the Separation of Politics and Religion in Japan as the U.S. Supreme Court Abandons the Separation of Church and State

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2022) | Religion and COVID 19 in the U.S.: The Good, the Bad, and the Shocking
Keynote Presentation (2020) | Religious Complicity and LGBTQ Rights
Keynote Presentation (2019) | The Religious and Ethical Void of Trumpism & the Oddity of Trump Support Among Some Evangelical Christians
Keynote Presentation (2018) | Law, Religion and Authoritarianism: From State Shinto to Religio-Trumpism
Featured Presentation (2017) | Freedom’s Edge: Balancing Religious Freedom and Equal Access to Facilities and Services for Transexuals
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Free Speech and Hate Speech – History, Story, Narrative
Mie Takaki
DBT Tokyo, Japan

Biography

Mie Takaki is a Certified Clinical Psychologist in Japan. She holds an MSc in Clinical and Counseling Psychology. She works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families with diverse backgrounds in multicultural Tokyo. Mie offers therapies and counseling in Japanese, English, and French. Once a week, Mie visits a public primary school as a school counselor for the Tokyo metropolitan government. Mie’s clinical orientation is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Mie completed intensive DBT training through Behavioral Tech: A Linehan Institute Training Company. Mie was born and raised in a small town in Niigata, Japan, but has been in and out of Japan for study and work since the age of 15. Her psychological practice is informed by her former career with an international NGO in Asia, West Africa and Latin America. As an expat, she moved from country to country; first as a single woman, and later with her family. She understands the dynamics that international moving adds to the psychological state of individuals and families.

Featured Presentation (2020) | Dialectical Behavior Therapy – Its Relevance for Japan in Social Transition
Embracing Difference: Religious Diversity in the UK
Keynote Presentation: Stephen Gregg

Tolerance for religious diversity is a core message in recent Governmental and Educational initiatives in the United Kingdom, along with a major component of British “soft power” in international relations. This presentation looks beyond the “brand” of multiculturalism/diverse heritage of the modern UK to understand religious identities beyond essentialising and reductive categories of membership or belonging. Using a Lived Religion approach, which preferences people above texts and practices above beliefs, I will survey recent UK equalities legislation, and discuss the effect this has had on everyday lived reality for religious individuals and communities. I will analyse census data and raise issues relating to the rise of the “religious nones”, the muted voices of minority religions, and the debate over Britain as a “Christian country”. I will focus on diversity within, as well as between, religions and ask why some communities are embraced more than others, and reflect upon the problem of tolerating intolerance.

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Religious Complicity and LGBTQ Rights
Keynote Presentation: Frank S. Ravitch

The relationship between religious complicity claims and discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community has been explored quite a bit in the last few years. This talk will focus on the supposed conflict between religious complicity claims and LGBTQ rights, especially transgender rights and same-sex marriage in the United States, and the relative lack of such complicity claims in Japan where cultural objections to same-sex marriage are used more often than religious ones, and where some transgender rights are more recognized than in the United States. The talk will argue for a contextual approach to these issues in the United States. That approach would legally protect religious complicity claims in some situations, but not others, and would consider who (or what sort of entity) is making the complicity claim as well as the nature of the harm legal protection of the complicity claim would inflict on members of the LGBTQ community. In Japan, the contextual approach has benefits as well; although it is less clear how it might work in the Japanese legal system.

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Helping a stranger in Japan: Who helps and why?
Featured Presentation: Yu Niiya

Renowned for its hospitality, Japan is getting ready for more omotenashi as it prepares for the Olympic and Paralympic games. However, is Japan really a helpful nation? Are the Japanese compassionate people? This presentation provides evidence that, in Japan, the decision to help a stranger depends heavily on what the situation dictates. To avoid the embarrassment of appearing meddlesome, the Japanese are less likely to intervene when the need of help is ambiguous, rather than clear. Further research shows that people who pursue compassionate goals to support others’ well-being are more likely to help, whereas those who pursue the goals to avoid projecting a negative image of the self are less likely to help. These findings suggest that helping could be promoted by encouraging people to shift their focus from questioning “what will I get?” to “what can I give?” Additionally, I will present recent findings that suggest that despite spending more time on others, those with compassionate goals experience greater time affluence and subjective well-being. The more strongly people pursue the goals to support others, the more they offer help and the happier they are.

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy – Its Relevance for Japan in Social Transition
Featured Presentation: Mie Takaki

Japan is not immune from the global trend of tensions between the acceptance of diversity, the rejection of it, or the ambivalence in between. Emerging recognition of LGBTQ rights (Chi, 2016; Tamagawa, 2018), the shift in gender roles and lifestyle choices (Kanomata, 2012), the rise of intercultural marriage and the number of children born into to these families (Takeda, 2008), the increase of Japanese with a global perspective (Ota, 2011), or increasing number of foreign workers and students in cultural and linguistic adjustment processes (Ishikawa, 2014; Niikura, 2008) in a still largely conformist, monoculture, monolinguistic, inward-looking communities are examples of the tensions. The tensions seem to amplify invalidations experienced by individuals who identify themselves as minorities in the transforming society, which in turn increase their emotional vulnerability.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)’s biosocial theory posits transactions between an invalidating environment and an individual’s emotional vulnerability as the factor for the development of borderline personality disorder (Linehan, 1993). In this presenter’s clinical work over the past four years in Tokyo produced enough samples to hypothesize that some, if not all, traits of BPD are present among these minority individuals. They are: a) affective lability especially of anger, b) chaotic relationships and chronic interpersonal crises, c) difficulties with sense of self, d) self-harm and other impulsive behaviors, and e) dissociative responses in stress situations (Linehan, 1993). DBT was effective to work with these individuals with its dialectical worldview (D) to understand and validate their private experiences; behavior procedures (B) that balances acceptance of emotional pain and change of problematic behaviors; and therapeutic relationship (T) that is genuine and equal.

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Mimi Bong
Korea University, South Korea

Biography

Mimi Bong is Professor of Educational Psychology and the Associate Director of the Brain and Motivation Research Institute (bMRI) of Korea University. Bong has been studying motivation of adolescents in school settings and published over 60 articles and book chapters on related topics over the past 18 years. Her work appears in journals such as Journal of Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, and Contemporary Educational Psychology, among others.

Bong was recognized as the 8th most productive educational psychologist for the period of 1997-2001 and received the ‘Richard E. Snow Award for Early Contributions in Educational Psychology’ from the American Psychological Association/Division 15. She is the Associate Editor of American Educational Research Journal for the Teaching, Learning, and Human Development section and has served or currently serves on the editorial boards of Child Development, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, Educational Researcher, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Experimental Education, and Theory into Practice.

Previous ACERP Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Why Do You Study? Complex Answers to a Simple Question
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George D. Chryssides
The University of Birmingham, UK

Biography

Dr George D. Chryssides is Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham, after being Head of Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, from 2001 to 2008. George Chryssides obtained a First Class Honours MA degree in philosophy at the University of Glasgow, and a First Class Honours Bachelor of Divinity in systematic theology. He subsequently undertook postgraduate research at the University of Oxford, obtaining his doctorate in 1974.

From the 1980s, George Chryssides’ main interest has been new religious movements, on which he has authored numerous books and scholarly articles. Recent publications include Historical Dictionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses (2008), Heaven’s Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group (2011), Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2012), The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements (co-edited with Benjamin E. Zeller,2014), and Jehovah’s Witnesses: Continuity and Change (2016). He is a regular presenter at national and international conferences.

Keynote Presentation (2022) | Successful Prophecy? Jehovah’s Witnesses, Covid-19 and the War in Ukraine
Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s current research concentrates on post-war and contemporary politics and international affairs, and since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

A Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance, Dr Haldane is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), a Visiting Professor at the School of Business at Doshisha University (Japan), and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the College of Education of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (USA).

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

Frank S. Ravitch
Michigan State University College of Law, United States

Biography

Frank S. Ravitch is Professor of Law and Walter H. Stowers Chair in Law in Religion at the Michigan State University College of Law. He also directs the MSU College of Law's Kyoto Japan Program. He is the author of Freedom’s Edge: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and the Future of America (Cambridge University Press, 2016) (Nominated for a Prose Award); Marketing Creation: The Law and Intelligent Design (Cambridge University Press 2012), Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses (NYU Press 2007); Law and Religion: Cases, Materials, and Readings (West 2004)(2nd Ed. 2008) (3rd Ed. 2015 with Larry Cata Backer), School Prayer and Discrimination: The Civil Rights of Religious Minorities and Dissenters (Northeastern University Press, 1999 & paperback edition 2001). He is co-author, with the late Boris Bittker and with Scott Idleman, of the first comprehensive treatise on Law and Religion in more than one hundred years, Religion and the State in American Law (Cambridge University Press 2015) (this project was supported by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment). He is co-author of Employment Discrimination Law (Prentice Hall, 2005) (with Pamela Sumners and Janis McDonald).

Professor Ravitch's articles, which have appeared in a number of highly regarded journals, have primarily focused on law and religion in the US and Japan. He has also written about civil rights law and disability discrimination. He has authored a number of amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court and has given numerous academic presentations nationally and internationally. In 2001, he was named a Fulbright scholar and served on the law faculty at Doshisha University in Japan. He has also made dozens of public presentations explaining the law to school groups, community groups, and service clubs, and has served as an expert commentator for print and broadcast media.

Professor Ravitch's current projects include a book on the Japanese Legal System (co-authored with Colin Jones), a chapter on law and religious tradition, and a project focusing on Law, Religion, and Authoritarianism. He speaks English and has basic conversational skills in Japanese and Hebrew.

Keynote Presentation (2023) | Ships in the Night: Expansion of the Separation of Politics and Religion in Japan as the U.S. Supreme Court Abandons the Separation of Church and State

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2022) | Religion and COVID 19 in the U.S.: The Good, the Bad, and the Shocking
Keynote Presentation (2020) | Religious Complicity and LGBTQ Rights
Keynote Presentation (2019) | The Religious and Ethical Void of Trumpism & the Oddity of Trump Support Among Some Evangelical Christians
Keynote Presentation (2018) | Law, Religion and Authoritarianism: From State Shinto to Religio-Trumpism
Featured Presentation (2017) | Freedom’s Edge: Balancing Religious Freedom and Equal Access to Facilities and Services for Transexuals
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Free Speech and Hate Speech – History, Story, Narrative
Monty P. Satiadarma
Tarumanagara University, Indonesia

Biography

Dr Satiadarma is a clinical psychologist who has taught psychology at Tarumanagara University since 1994. He was one of the founders of the Department of Psychology at Tarumanagara, as well as the Dean of Psychology, Vice Rector and Rector of the university. He graduated with a degree in Psychology from the University of Indonesia, Art Therapy from Emporia State, Kansas, Family Counselling from Notre Dame de Namur, California, and Clinical Hypnotherapy from Irvine, California. He has published a number of books and has a particular interest in educational psychology and music & art therapy – methods with which he treated survivors of the Indonesian tsunami on behalf of the International Red Cross and the United Nations. He is a board member and area chair of the International Council of Psychology, and a founder and board member of the Asian Psychology Association.

Featured Presentation (2022) | Perceived Stress of Students During Online Learning

Previous Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2019) | “The Value of Internationalising Psychology” or “The Value of Indigenous Psychologies”
Featured Panel Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy
IAAB Presentation (2017) | Life Changes, Identity Loss and Psychological Problems
Spotlight Presentation (2016) | Fairness and Happiness
Spotlight Presentation (2015) | The Lucifer Effect in Indonesian Educational Settings
Featured Presentation (2014)
Featured Presentation (2013)
Featured Presentation (2012)
Dexter Da Silva
Keisen University, Japan

Biography

Dr Dexter Da Silva is currently Professor of Educational Psychology at Keisen University in Tokyo. He has taught EFL at junior high school, language schools, and universities in Sydney, Australia, and for more than two decades has been living, and teaching at the tertiary level, in Japan. Professor Da Silva was educated at the University of Sydney (BA, Dip. Ed., MA), and the University of Western Sydney (PhD). He has presented and co-presented at conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States, co-edited two books on Motivation in Foreign Language Learning, and written or co-written articles and book chapters on education-related topics, such as trust, student motivation, autonomy, and content-based language teaching. He is a past editor of On CUE Journal, past president of the Asian Psychological Association, regular reviewer for conferences, proceedings, journal articles and book chapters, and regularly co-chairs and participates in the Organising Committee of conferences on Motivation, Language Learning and Teaching, and Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences.

Featured Panel Presentation (2019) | “The Value of Internationalising Psychology” or “The Value of Indigenous Psychologies”

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy: The Most Important Literacy for the 21st Century
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Battles of Ideas: Identity and Alienation
Featured Presentation (2015)
Featured Presentation (2014)
Featured Presentation (2012)
Brian Victoria
Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK

Biography

Brian Victoria is a native of Omaha, Nebraska and a 1961 graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. He holds a MA in Buddhist Studies from Sōtō Zen sect-affiliated Komazawa University in Tokyo, and a PhD from the Department of Religious Studies at Temple University.

In addition to a second, enlarged edition of Zen At War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), Brian's major writings include Zen War Stories (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003); an autobiographical work in Japanese entitled Gaijin de ari, Zen bozu de ari (As a Foreigner, As a Zen Priest), published by San-ichi Shobo in 1971; Zen Master Dōgen, coauthored with Prof. Yokoi Yūhō of Aichi-gakuin University (Weatherhill, 1976); and a translation of The Zen Life by Sato Koji (Weatherhill, 1972). In addition, Brian has published numerous journal articles, focusing on the relationship of not only Buddhism but religion in general, to violence and warfare.

From 2005 to 2013 Brian was a Professor of Japanese Studies and director of the AEA “Japan and Its Buddhist Traditions Program” at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, OH, USA. From 2013 to 2015 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan. His latest book, Zen Terror: The Death of Democracy in Prewar Japan is forthcoming from Rowman & Littlefield in September 2019. Brian is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies and a fully ordained Buddhist priest in the Sōtō Zen sect.

Keynote Presentation (2021) | Zen Terror: Killing Compassionately?

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2019) | Is Religious Tolerance Always Desirable: The Case of Shinto and Buddhism
Featured Presentation (2018) | Shinto: Window on Universal Religion
Featured Presentation (2017) | Military Conscription, Slavery and the Modern State
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Battles of Ideas: Identity and Alienation